“Caller ID” subscription services offer perceived value in allowing called parties to identify callers and thereby make informed call-disposition decisions. In this specification, “Caller ID” means caller identification information and includes “Calling Number Identifier”, “Calling Name Identification”, and other variations used in the field.
Existing services are focused on the “receiving end”—on manipulating received calling-number and calling-name information, allowing automation of incoming-call disposition according to user and/or business policy. Disposition variables can include incoming Caller ID, time of day, current status (e.g. on the phone); service policy typically has a system default and can be tailored by the user.
The utility of these existing services relies on the accuracy and credibility of calling-name identification information. The recipient needs confidence that the calling-party's identification can be trusted. This is especially true for communications services where the end systems are not under regulatory control. A PSTN subscriber loop is relatively secure, and the calling-party identifier can generally be trusted; while it is possible to provide invalid calling-party identifiers, the problem is rare and the called party can have a high degree of confidence in the information. Consequently, current calling-number and calling-name ID information is tied to the registration (and sometimes, e.g. in the case of wire line services, to the physical location) of the caller's terminal device, which typically has one number associated with each subscriber loop.
Conversely, a poorly-managed, mis-configured, or maliciously-configured Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system (e.g., one based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)) can offer relatively-arbitrary calling-party identification information.
Today's service providers derive large amounts of revenue from Caller ID services. Growth in remote and branch-office installations; and adoption of Voice over IP (VoIP), and other situations where the identity of the calling party may be obscured, threaten Caller ID accuracy and by extension that revenue stream.
One prior art system and method for authentication of caller identification is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,324,271, issued Nov. 27, 2001 to Sawyer et al., and assigned to the assignee of the present application, which is hereby incorporated by reference. “Sawyer” is focused on authenticating the identity of a calling party regardless of the location or terminal the user is calling from—the same identity can be offered regardless of whether the user is dialing in from a payphone, from their residence, desk phone, or cell.
However, many people serve in multiple roles through the course of the day. One prior art Method and Apparatus for Providing User Controlled Call Management Services is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,636, issued Aug. 20, 1996 to Bannister et al., and assigned to the assignee of the present application, which is hereby incorporated by reference. Bannister deals with call management services, which allows a called party to have calls routed to different terminals. Bannister recognizes that the Called party will have different roles, and will not necessarily know whether a re-routed call to the called party's cell phone was originally destined to the called party's office phone or home phone. Accordingly Bannister teaches a method and apparatus for advising the called party of the role to which a received call was originally directed.
These two inventions deal with, first, offering a unique calling identity regardless of the nature of the originating device; the second is focused on aiding the called party in managing incoming calls.
Reference is also made to US patent application by Steeves et. al., filed Jun. 20, 2001 with Ser. No. 09/884,346, entitled Method for Privacy and Personalization on IP Networks, and assigned to the assignee of the present application, which is hereby incorporated by reference. None of these references aid a caller in controlling the outgoing calling information to better represent the context of their call.
A person with multiple roles may want to make a call relating to one role in a spare moment snatched from another, or while at home. For example, consider a physician who runs a private practice, maintains a home office, has admitting privileges at a local hospital, and volunteers at a local HIV clinic. In the struggle to keep up, she catches up on her work in those various capacities whenever and wherever she can. However, placing a call from one location, but relating to a different capacity or function (hereafter “role”), can inadvertently provide misleading (and potentially private) information to the called party. Depending on what is displayed, the information delivered to the called party in the Caller ID field may have connotations which are inaccurate, potentially alarming, and may not offer appropriate privacy protection.
In addition to creating opportunities for misunderstanding and poor call-disposition decisions, the calling information may not be useful to the called party—if recorded by a Caller ID device or voicemail, as the called party may not have the correct information to properly return the call.
Many scenarios can be envisioned—for example, teachers calling parents to report students' performance concerns would prefer to leave the school's switchboard number than that of their own home telephone—and the school number is more useful to the concerned parent.
Conventional systems allow some measure of privacy protection by being able to suppress the Caller ID field. However, this typically results in a blocked number being presented to the caller, who may ignore the call in order to avoid telemarketers, which is problematic, especially for situations where voice messages are inappropriate.
A preferable scenario might be to leave the number of the hospital switchboard for a hospital patient; or the doctor's private practice number for the call about his patient's annual physical; or the school's number for a teacher.